Current technologies for converting heavy crudes, bitumens, etc., to lighter products include: (1) hydrocracking or (2) combinations of coking or thermal operations followed by some form of hydroprocessing. In the former, reformation of heavy crude oil into lighter hydrocarbon products is accomplished by contacting the crude oil with hydrogen and catalyst which decomposes and cracks the hydrocarbons into lighter hydrocarbons. Various designs have been utilized in the past for hydrotreatment of heavy petroleum oil. For example, in some systems, a liquid petroleum feedstock is cracked in a down-flow fixed-bed reactor. The hydrocarbon products are removed from the bottom of the reactor.
This type of system is vulnerable to coking and may require frequent catalyst replacement. Other problems include flooding of the catalyst bed and plugging of the catalyst bed with metals present in the heavy oil. In addition, current crude conversion technologies are capital intensive and require a sophisticated refinery infrastructure including hydrogen plants, fuel, and feed for the production of hydrogen or a source of hydrogen.
Hence, there remains a need to provide a reactor system that avoids the problems associated with fixed bed catalyst reactors. There is also a need to provide a process that provides a cheaper source of hydrogen and apparatus for simultaneous and combined thermal and catalytic treatment of extra heavy crude oil.